The Hazel Green herald. [volume] (Hazel Green, Wolfe County, Ky.) 1885-19??, 1887-07-27
TEMPERANCE.
LABOR AND THE DRINK EVIL.
A Great and vital Essue-The Attitude
which Organized Working Men should
Take Toward the Saloon.

working-men, as he has often done be-
fore. 1t is pity that so many other
issues of far less consequence have been
permitted TO engross the attention and
exhaust the energies of the Labor asso-
Citations. 1t might have been thought
that with the projection of National
organization of labor there would have
gone determination to begin the i'm
provement of the existing situation by
taking hold of and dealing resolutely
with question the settlement of which
is so completely in the hands of those
Immediately affected. In all the mat
tiers which involve the relations be-
tween labor and capital settlement is
retarded by conflicting interests and
by the fact that neither of the parties
can decide for both. But this is not
the case as regards the drink evil.
Here Labor has the first and the last
word. Here it is Independent. Here
it can determine the future for itself
without awaiting the consent or agree
ment Of any other interest. And how
powerful on behalf of sobriety would
the knights of Labor and the unions
prove if they put this great vital issue at
the head of their programmes; it they
showed the country and the world that
they meant 20 begin reform by casting
away the most costly and miscellaneous
burdens that rests upon their Shout
derS.
Mr.. Powderly said in his speech at
Lynn: "ln one Pennsylvania county in
q single year $1,000 600 was spent for
liquor, and il was estimated that SILL
600, 900 of the amount came from work
ing-men." That may very be well
Just estimate. for it has been calculated
that between 800. 900 and $780,
900, 900 yearly is spent upon drink by
the working-men of the entire country.
The mere statement of these figures
has perhaps little effect. yet they pos
sess strong significance, and the
question they seem TO suggest most
emphatically is this: How can the lead
ers of Labor think they are directing
it to practical ends so long as they re-
frain from dealing directly with a
waste which even now surpasses in an
nual amount all the gains in increase of
wages the most sanguine can antici-
pate during the next twenty years?
Looking at the matter solely rs one of
profit and loss, how can any practical
man hope 70 bring Labor up to the
plane of natural possibilities while il is
being drained of its resources By the
saloon? If financicr were asked to
take charge of the business Of a great
firm which was running behind, and
discovered that full third of its in
come was spent upon drink, and were
told that this outlay must not be Gus
tailed or stopped, but that he must find
some new source of revenue to make
up for il, what would he think of the
wisdom, and how would he estimate
the prospects, of that firm?
Yet the working-men's leaders seem
to think that, though the drink evil is
formidable enough to demand occa-
sional remonstrance and denunciation,
it is not formidable enough to be made
the object of organized action. This is a
grave error of Judgment. Facts and
figures prove that American labor suf-
fers from no external influences 1.-THE
of the harm which it inficts upon itself;
and it is equally clear that this self
injury often paralyzes its eff
forts to obtain release from the bur-
dens which are imposed on it from
without. There are not many situa-
tions i'm which the sober man is not
master of his future. There are no
so favorable that they may
not be neutralized by intemperance.
To the drinker opportunities are use
less. Thrift and drink are incompat-
ible, and without thrift the highest
wages in the world will not bring COM
petence or assurance against penury.
There could be no nobler, more prac-
teal aim for the great Labor organiza-
tons than Il crusade against the drink
evil. That, indeed. would be an Anti
Poverty Soci ETY. which undertook to
liberate the working-men from this
curse. No course so absolutely certain
to elevate, to enrich, to strengthen,
those devoted to it, could be conceived.
The organization. the machinery, is
ready. but where is the self-denial, the
aspiration, the enthusiasm to adapt it
to the desired end? 1t is not enough |
to breach the subject here and there.
however earnestly it be treated. If
any thing is to be done to stop the fear
ful waste Of capital, health, character. |
life itself, which the drink habit en-
tails. there must he a great Temper